- Oct 3, 2007
- 1,539
I don't know about the rest of you in the Northeast but since August (when Irene hit) I've seen more tree trucks on the road every day than I've probably ever seen. I commute 40 miles each way through a fairly rural part of NJ (Hunterdon and northern Mercer Counties) and basically every morning I'll see trucks from Nelson, Bartlett, Asplundh, Davey, and others whereas prior to the Hurricane I would maybe see a few here and there. Being in the government relations field I've heard a fair amount of talk about the theory of the recent power outages being due in large part to utilities (in NJ and elsewhere) cutting back on tree trimming over the past few years in an effort to cut costs. I would venture to say that the utilities are now pretty skittish and have sent their forestry crews and contractors into overdrive. Just on a ROW near my house I've seen Nelson trucks three times in the past two weeks. Basically the point is-if you keep a sharp eye out there is likely to be quite a bit more wood coming down on top of what was taken down by the storm. I'm betting that the utilities are going to be very aggressive when it comes to trimming at least for the near future. None of them want a February or March ice storm to create another public relations disaster with extended outages in freezing temperatures. All of that said-do your homework before picking anything up-the ROWs are usually easements so the ROW is not power company land-it's someone else's land and they just have the right to run lines over it/maintain it. The wood belongs to whoever owns the land. Luckily my county has all of their GIS data online (many counties are doing this now) so that one can easily look up the landowner. As was talked about in some earlier threads, often, all you have to do is ask. I've had a lot of luck sending letters to folks. Food for thought...